Participating Organizations

Southern Oregon Public Television

About

In 1965, Oregon Educational Broadcasting (OEB), forerunner of Oregon
Public Broadcasting (OPB), persuaded the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
to reassign channel 8 from Brookings to Medford. OEB intended to make channel
8 the third station in its television network, which at that time included flagship
KOAC-TV in Corvallis and KOAP-TV (now KOPB-TV) in Portland. Southern Oregon was
the only region of the state without public television. However, OEB backed out
after a protracted battle with several commercial applicants. The license eventually
went to Liberty Television, owners of KEZI-TV in Eugene.

The owners of the two
commercial stations in the area, Bill Smullin of KTVM-TV (now KOBI) and Ray Johnson
of KMED-TV (now KTVL), helped a new nonprofit corporation, Southern Oregon Educational
Company (SOEC), buy the channel 8 construction permit from Liberty. They also
pledged payments of $50,000 once the station signed on. Getting the funds to sign
on proved more difficult than expected. With the FCC permit about to run out,
KSYS went on the air on January 17, 1977 with the strongest signal of any station
in the region, at 191,000 watts. This was still not enough to cover Klamath Falls,
and SOEC (later renamed Southern Oregon Public Television, Inc.) immediately applied
for another station to cover that region. However, it took 12 more years before
KFTS went on the air in January 1989.

The two stations are the only public television
stations in the state not affiliated with OPB, but occasionally air some of OPB's
programs.

They are also the "Presenting Station" for several national programs
including Tommy Emmanuel and Jesse Cook pledge specials. They also present the
series Sierra Center Stage and Music Gone Public.